


my tears are becoming a sea

by abovetheserpentine



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 21:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12756669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abovetheserpentine/pseuds/abovetheserpentine
Summary: Based on the prompt "Zayn is a mermaid and falls in love with human Harry from afar, knowing they will never be."





	my tears are becoming a sea

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the anon who sent me the prompt on tumblr! I wasn't going to do anything with it, but then this happened on a Saturday night lmao. Enjoy!
> 
> Title from the M83 song of the same name.

Zayn first sees him in the summer.

Out of his pod, he’s probably the one most familiar with the changing of the seasons, with the way humans track time – with humans, in general. Ever since Zayn was a little fry, and then when he was a juvenile, he’s always wanted to interact with the humans, to play with them. His _ammi_ always told him to stay away – “Don’t let them see you, _piyaara,_ ” she’d say, quiet against his ear before they went to sleep, “They are not kind to what they do not know.”

Zayn thinks he looks kind, this one human. Even if he seems so sad.

“So stupid,” the human mumbles, his brown curls wayward in the summer breeze. The stones beneath his feet look big and imposing against the frailty of his human bones. Zayn’s always thought humans look too breakable for a species that tend to dominate. As a mermaid, Zayn’s always known he could kill one if it came down to it – they were taught the weak spots, the vulnerabilities, just in case they were hunted, or trapped. There are a lot of humans, their teachers would tell them, that would want to hurt them given the chance or the knowledge of their existence.

Zayn can only see so much from far away, but he knows the wetness on this man’s cheeks isn’t happy, not when he sniffs pathetically, wiping at his nose with the sleeve of his jumper. It may be summer, but the shores of Northern England aren’t forgiving to humans, Zayn knows.

“I’m so fucking _stupid!_ ” The human exclaims, and his voice rises at the end, the shout getting louder. Zayn tilts his head – the only part of him out of the water – in curiosity. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say the human was talking to him.

The man wipes at his face again, bringing his knees up to his chest to hug them, ankles bare and fragile. Zayn has the sudden urge to circle them with his hands, the webs of his fingers sensitive to the hair dusting this man’s ankles. It’s an urge he’s never really had before – to touch someone else, mermaid or no. His friend Liam always jokes, says Zayn would be in a pod all by himself if he could. But that’s not it – Zayn wanders and he swims by himself, searching for interesting things and coming back with food because it gives him an excuse to go off alone. But he always comes back, always arrives just before he says he will. Zayn is reliable, even if no one quite knows what he’s doing out in the ocean on his lonesome.

“I shouldn’t’ve told them,” the man continues, and Zayn finds himself swimming closer without conscious thought, “I’ve gone and mucked it all up, _shit._ ”

The man sits in silence after that, picking up stones and throwing them into the slow tide, his eyes watching nothing. Zayn observes from afar, lets his tail grow tired with staying in place against the current if it means he can have one more moment of trying to understand this human.

And hour later the man retreats, walking slowly away from the shore, not looking back into the ocean once. Zayn leaves then, too – but with the lasting memory of glass-green eyes staring miserably out at the sea, lips bitten pink and raw.

Zayn wonders, even as he goes out to that same place again and sees no human, sad or otherwise – he wonders what made the man so distressed. He wonders whether he’ll come back and talk to Zayn again, even if he doesn’t know it.

 

***

 

The sun is out a week later, and Zayn knows that no human has been near this cove since the curly one, so he lets himself sit up on a rock formation far away from shore, but close enough that someone on land might see him if the sun hit his iridescent scales _just_ right. Zayn’s confident, though, that no human would know what he was, regardless. They’re awfully good at convincing themselves that they’re imagining things, Zayn’s learnt over the years. He feels safe.

The sun lets him warm up, his skin turning ever browner with every passing hour. It’s rare in their part of the world – and even worse when they live deep in the ocean – that Zayn gets to enjoy this kind of day at all. England isn’t favourable to Zayn’s proclivity for sunbathing, and usually they’re all so pale from lingering near the deep sea. Niall would laugh if he mentioned it – he’d always complained about the Irish seas being so much worse in every way. Zayn imagines he must feel the deep sea _is_ sunbathing, and the thought makes Zayn smile, eyes closing on the rays of the sun, his eyelashes brushing his cheeks.

His scales feel free in the summer air, and he flaps his tail up and down happily, eyes resting on the transition from blue to purple to green with satisfaction. The purple comes out in the sun, and he knows it hinders his ability to hunt, camouflage not as powerful; but he takes pride in the way it impresses others, even if his past suitors haven’t ever interested him.

He looks away, and it’s only then, before he was about to shut his eyes once more, that he notices the lone figure on the pebbled beach.

Getting back into the water isn’t a shock – Zayn lives there, and he knows his body naturally rests at temperatures cooler than any humans so he can do so comfortably – but he lets out a hiss as the heat leaves him. He’s in a bit of the mood because of it by the time he gets close enough to hear anything, but the sobs coming from the man stop him from trying to scare him, like Zayn was considering.

He sounds awful; the great heaves he’s giving, his breath leaving him in big whooshes – it makes Zayn frown. He feels his hair stick to his right cheek, the shaved side tingling with the breeze. This man’s curls are greasy – they almost look wet in the sunlight – and tangled. One of his hands buries itself in there, and Zayn notes that this human has tattoos all up that arm. The anchor on his wrist makes Zayn smile wryly. Maybe he’s a sailor, this sad human.

 _No,_ Zayn thinks as the man sobs loudly – no sailor would feel like this around the sea, Zayn is certain.

He swims closer – enough to see the tremble in the man’s hands, the way his toes are curling up in the pebbles, his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth parted slightly. His cheeks are dripping with tears.

It takes only a moment for Zayn to make his choice – this human needs to be happy. Zayn would be, if he had the land at his disposal. If he could do all the things humans do, like play instruments, or go on planes, or eat anything but fish. Zayn thinks he’d be a good human, if he had the chance.

It’s easy to think like that, he realises, when he doesn’t suffer like humans do; with their currency, their independence from each other, their need for shelter. Humans have it harder, sometimes.

“Hello,” he says, and his voice feels rough with lack of use – it’s been a while since he’s spoken like this, human in cadence and language.

The man just keeps on sobbing, head buried in his knees. Zayn waits, hovering a little closer so his hips are brushing the sand pebbles beneath him, his scales rubbing uncomfortably.

Once the sobs lessen ten minutes later, he tries again.

“Hello,” he says, because he knows he can come across abrupt if he bypasses the human pleasantries that have always seemed so tiring to him. He’s never bothered with them before, but neighbouring pods always eye him warily when they pass through, wondering how a mermaid so beautiful could be so cold.

Zayn likes it that way, but now is not the time.

The man’s head snaps up, and then he drags his palms down his cheeks quickly, his cheeks going pink with human shame and embarrassment. Zayn wants to laugh, but he just tilts his head, asking a silent question.

“Sorry,” the man mumbles, “Sorry, I didn’t see you.”

“Zayn,” he supplies, ignoring the apology.

The man clears his throat, inhaling sharply as his eyes look anywhere but at Zayn. “Harry.”

Zayn lets his eyes rover over him – his sharp jaw and high cheekbones remind Zayn of a pod from the south, whose faces are so angular Zayn could fit right in. He’s otherworldly, this human. Zayn lets his shoulders relax.

“You shouldn’t cry so much,” Zayn tells him, and Harry’s head snaps to him, his eyes wide and wet, “Be happy.”

Harry opens his mouth to say something with a frown, but Zayn knows he’s already outstayed his welcome. He’s not supposed to talk to humans, and this one now knows he has to be happy so that’s Zayn’s job done.

He turns, pushing off the pebbles with enough force to propel him a few metres away into deeper water, ducking his head under quickly and letting his tail breach the surface. He knows the purple will shine in the sunlight, and maybe Harry will tell himself later he imagined it all – the man who told him to be happy, the hint of a tail – but if it makes him smile in wonder, makes him forget to be sad... well, Zayn considers it justified.

 

***

 

When Zayn returns the next day, Harry is there. He’s wearing blue jeans rolled up to his knees, and he’s got a patterned shirt on. Zayn thinks humans can be so strange with the way they dress, but Harry seems to be at home in his outfit, comfortable in a way humans rarely are. It makes sense, then, Zayn thinks. Harry makes sense.

Zayn doesn’t approach him, though, or show himself. He just watches Harry from under the pier – watches him throw small pebbles into the ocean, looking out further than his eyes can surely see. Harry does this for twenty-three minutes, and then he leaves. He looks over his shoulder three times, eyes roving, before he disappears from sight. Zayn smiles.

 

***

 

“I’m telling you,” Zayn hears suddenly another day later, and he lets the school of fish he’s teasing with his hands swim away as he turns, hair dry in the summer sun and his face pleasantly warm, “He had a tail.”

“Harry...” The woman with Harry frowns, and she looks so much like him that for a moment Zayn thinks _he_ might be human, imagining things as he is.

“Don’t look at me like that, Gem,” Harry says, and Zayn thinks he sounds sad again, “I can’t take it anymore.”

“No one blames you, Harry,” Gemma says, and Zayn watches as Harry turns to the ocean, his eyes searching for something. For Zayn. “We didn’t know, and Louis–”

“I don’t want to talk about Louis.” Harry snaps, and Zayn’s eyebrows raise. He thinks he feels like laughing, but realises it’s more that he wants to prod at Harry, poke him until he tells Zayn everything. Liam says he’s too curious for his own good. But curiosity kills cats, not mermaids – that’s what Zayn always tells him, much to Liam’s annoyance.

“Louis loves you.” Gemma says, and she sounds sad, too. Harry squeezes his eyes, fists clenched by his sides as he faces the calm sea.

“Forget it,” Harry says fiercely, “I never should have told him, and I certainly shouldn’t have done it in front of everyone.”

“Haz,” Gemma says, and Zayn inches a little closer, the tips of his hair brushing the surface and getting wet, “This isn’t healthy. You’re wandering off by yourself at all hours, and no one knows where to find you. Then you come back yesterday and say you saw a man with a _tail–_ ”

Zayn’s chest feels strange when Harry’s eyes open again, when the tears run down his cheeks. He wants to swim up to them and show this Gemma his beautiful tail. But he knows better, even if Harry’s eyes flick around the beach desperately.

“This was meant to be a holiday,” Gemma says, and she’s staring at Harry with a look on her face Zayn can’t decipher, “Come on.”

“I saw him,” Harry says vehemently, and then he turns around so fast that Zayn misses his face, suddenly – and the way he’s so expressive. Zayn frowns. This new human doesn’t tell him anything. “He was here, and he made me smile, and I _need to show you._ ”

Zayn swims away before he can think. It’s better if Harry never sees him again. It’s better if he thinks he made Zayn up.

The thought doesn’t make Zayn feel good, though – even with the confirmation that he made Harry smile.

 

***

 

He brings Niall with him the next day, and finds himself occupied with making sure they’re not spotted.

“Are you stupid?” Zayn hisses when Niall tries to breach the surface and wave about his green tail for all to see. “There are humans around here.” It seems ironic, considering Zayn’s past week.

“Oops,” Niall says, grinning, “Sorry. Not used to that.”

“You’re lucky they can’t see us this far out,” Zayn tells him, swinging his head and ignoring the fall of his heart at the empty beach, “And that no one’s decided to visit the cove.”

Niall shrugs. “Why’s it such a big deal? Always thought that talk of hunting and killing was a bit much as a juvie.”

“Because humans don’t like what they don’t know,” Zayn reiterates his mother’s words, rolling his eyes, “They nailed us to ships in the olden days, or did you fall asleep all through history?”

“Yeah,” Niall says, “But that was like five hundred years ago, wasn’t ‘t?”

“Humans don’t change, Niall,” Zayn says, pulling him along to float under the pier, where human eyes won’t be able to see them even from this close. He lets himself sigh, breathing in the air with his lungs. He rests an absent palm on his closed gills, unnoticeable out of water.

“I dunno,” Niall says, picking up a crab and resting it on his shoulder. The crab tries to pincer his shoulder, but Niall just laughs – their skin is too tough for it to hurt, Zayn knows, but it still looks odd. “Humans’d have a hard time killin’ us, hey? Besides,” he adds, letting the crab walk down his arm quickly, the crustacean suddenly afraid at what it can’t understand, “Not all humans are bad. S’like mermaids. We all hate the Brighton pod, but they’re not _all_ mermaids, are they?” Niall shrugs with a smile, his brown hair still wet against his head, eyes bright blue in the sun. “Just like the humans who killed us aren’t _all_ humans.”

Zayn doesn’t say anything. He knows they aren’t, and that’s the problem. If he lets himself believe it fully, he’ll go around making human friends; and after Harry, it just seems like a bad idea. Humans tell other humans, and Zayn can’t risk his pod to make one human smile. He just can’t.

Remembering Harry’s stricken face, he wishes he could, though.

 

***

 

The sun’s disappeared when he returns without Niall the next morning, and Zayn’s almost decided to call it a day after only an hour when someone appears at the top of the beach, running to the water.

It’s Harry, and his face is wet again. He doesn’t stop to sit, or to cry – he just keeps running, and he’s knee-deep in the water before he halts, chest heaving.

“Are you there?” he croaks out, and he closes his eyes, swallows heavily. “ _Please,_ are you there?”

Zayn says nothing from his place hidden in the waves. The current’s getting stronger, the waves rougher. He thinks tomorrow it might be too difficult to swim into the cove, but he just might. He’s the strongest swimmer in the pod, which is half the reason his mother lets him go off by himself. If anyone could withstand it, it’d be Zayn.

And even if he can’t call out, can’t say “Yes, I’m here. Why are you crying?” – Zayn just wants to be able to see Harry and know that he’s lived another day of his human life. He just wants to know that Harry’s still around, hoping for a glimpse of a tail. If he’s hoping, happiness awaits him. He’d looked so desolate that first day, and Zayn can’t bear to think what might’ve been if he hadn’t said anything.

It seems ludicrous, that in such a short space of time this human has come to mean so much. But maybe this is what the universe has always had in store for him – maybe this is why he finds it so hard to like anyone else. Because he’s always just been waiting to meet Harry, crying on this secluded beach. He’s always just been waiting to meet a human.

 _Not a human,_ he thinks as Harry steps back enough that he can sit in the water, not caring about getting his clothes wet. His hair is just above his shoulders, and Zayn longs to comb his fingers through the mess, let the salt water help it. He used to do it for his sisters when they were little, and he misses the intimacy it brings.

Not a human, he realises. He’s just been waiting to meet Harry. He thinks suddenly of how he’d made him happy, and he thinks – maybe it’s worth the risk, if Harry smiles. Maybe he can take Harry’s sadness and carry it with him. That might be enough, he thinks.

He pointedly doesn’t think about anything else; like how humans and mermaids can’t be friends, let alone lovers. Like how the only stories of mermaids turning into humans have been through dodgy witchcraft, when the mermaid only had a year as a human before they would die.

Zayn thinks that would be worse. If he died, he wouldn’t be able to carry Harry’s sadness – and hasn’t this been the whole point? Humans should be happy.

 _Harry_ should be happy.

Zayn swims home, heart heavy.

 

***

 

“What have you done?” Liam asks him seriously. He places a webbed hand on Zayn’s shoulder, eyes wide. “ _Zayn._ ”

“Stop,” Zayn says, and he knows he sounds utterly different – the fact his emotions are showing at all means something’s awry. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You fell in love with a human,” Liam says, and he doesn’t sound surprised, “Zayn, this is unreal.”

“It’s only been two weeks.” Zayn reminds him, and Liam huffs, sceptical.

“You of all people know we love too easily. Sophia left her pod after three days of meeting me.” He smiles, but it soon turns worried. “Humans aren’t like that.”

Zayn knows. But he thinks of all the tales his father told him as a fry; of mermaids swimming across oceans for love, for their family. He thinks – being tied to Harry like this isn’t so hard, in comparison. If Harry doesn’t love him, that’s okay. Zayn just wants to make him smile.

“To your earlier question: I’ve never...” Liam frowns, “I’ve never heard of a permanent change, Zayn. I’m sorry.” Zayn nods. He figured as much. There aren’t ever stories of mermaids falling in love with humans – it’s always been a curiosity that’s landed someone in with witches willing to spell away a tail. Zayn won’t engage with witchcraft. Harry needs more than that.

The sea is rough above them, but Zayn knows he has to see him again. He needs to watch over him, make sure his smile returns. He hasn’t seen it yet, and he thinks he might quite like to.

“Be careful,” Doniya tells him, and his younger sisters pet his tail in goodbye, a silent _I love you_ that he returns. “Be safe.”

They don’t know about Harry, but maybe there’s something in Zayn’s eyes – maybe they realise he’s letting his heart think for him, because just before he leaves, his older sister continues.

“Love you,” she says, instead of touching his tail. It shifts uneasily, like the statement in Mermish means so much more than the intimate brush of scale.

“I love you, too.” Zayn replies, and he swims up, out of the deep sea and into now more familiar territory.

The water is choppy – too choppy to bother venturing out on another day, but Zayn is determined. When he lets himself break the surface, he realises it’s pouring with rain – and above him the clouds look black and ominous, thunder sounding in the distance.

He swims hard, and he’s thankful for it because it’s as he enters the cove that he sees the body fling itself into the sea.

“Zayn!” Harry’s shouting, desperate, “Where are you?”

His heart’s hammering in his chest, and it has nothing to do with the force of his swim, the rapid swing of his tail.

“ZAYN!” Harry yells, and then there’s nothing but thunder, the rain bucketing down so hard that any human would be hard-pressed to breathe in it.

Zayn ducks under water and he pushes through the current, the lurch of the waves, until he’s about where Harry’s cries dropped off. He’s whipping his head around under the surface, searching for him, hoping to see legs pumping, trying to stay afloat.

“ _Harry!_ ” he shouts, voice hoarse above water. There’s no reply, so he dives back under, darting around hoping to recognise something.

He screams in Mermish in an attempt to get his attention, the screech echoing dully, but there’s nothing.

He’s about to breach the surface again, scream for help – scream for Harry – when he sees something from the corner of his eyes. Spinning around, he whips his tail through the water with an unknown force, rocketing across the cove to reach him.

He hoists Harry up by the shoulders – _how did he get this far out?_ – and pulls him toward shore, making sure his head is above water as Zayn swims under him, rushing to land.

He heaves Harry onto dry pebbles with a grunt – the sodden clothes he’s wearing make it harder. He absently notes that there’s some kind of thick jumper weighing him down before Zayn slaps at Harry’s face hurriedly.

“Harry,” He says urgently, pleadingly, “Harry. Wake up. Wake up now.”

His eyes are closed and he looks pale, his lips more blue than pink as the rain pours down on them.

“Wake up!” Zayn cries, feeling his chest constrict. His tail _thwaps_ against the pebbles painfully in irritation, and Zayn feels his eyes sting, a foreign sensation. “ _Be happy!_ ”

Zayn takes him by the shoulders and shakes, turning him on his side when the rain seems to get worse, coming down in sheets that make it hard for even Zayn to see through.

“Harry,” he croaks, and he eyes are stinging so painfully now, his nose blocking. Zayn sniffs. “Harry, wake up.” He rests his head on Harry’s elbow, breathing heavily. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Zayn was supposed to make him happy. Zayn was supposed to see him smile. Zayn loves him.

“What are you doing?!” A new voice shouts, and Zayn lifts his head. He sees a man running to them. “Get off him!”

“ _Harry._ ” Zayn pleads once more before he’s pushed away roughly, falling onto his side.

“Haz,” the man starts up in a panic, turning Harry onto his back, “Wake up, mate. Come on.”

He puts his palms to Harry’s chest on top of each other, begins pushing up and down in time with his count. He stops to tilt Harry’s head back, to put his mouth over Harry’s, and then he’s pushing again.

It doesn’t take long, and Zayn breathes a short sigh of relief when Harry’s body jolts, curling in on itself as he coughs up sea water.

“There we go,” The man says, sounding incredibly relieved, “Brilliant, H. You’re doing so well. Deep breaths.”

“Oh my God.”

Zayn turns and sees Gemma, her eyes wide as they slide from Harry and the new man to Zayn, who’s still perched awkwardly on his side.

“Zayn?”

He whips his head back to Harry. His eyes are red, his nose is running, and his face is still pale. His lips are better, though, and they’re stretched into a grin. “Zayn!”

He pushes past the man, who falls onto his arse, and almost tackles Zayn. He hovers above him, smiling.

“You came back.” He states quietly through the rain, and Zayn puts his hands on either side of Harry’s wet face.

They’re not webbed, though, which is... a shock.

He pulls them back, turning them over to stare. Harry grabs one with his hand, stares with him.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asks as he looks back to Zayn. He seems panicked. “Zayn, what’s wrong?”

He can’t quite breathe, is the thing. Zayn looks down slowly, sees human legs where his tail should be, sees a thatch of hair between them and makes a strangled noise.

“Why is he naked, Harry?” Gemma asks, and Harry looks up and away towards her, his jaw jutting out. Zayn places a hand on it – a human hand – and laughs.

“Harry,” Zayn urges, and Harry turns back to him, green eyes wide. There’s an ocean in them, and Zayn laughs again. “ _I’m human._ ”

 

***

 

He’s given a blanket, and Harry won’t let go of his hand from the tightest grip Zayn’s ever felt – he’s never held hands with someone, but now he can. Because he’s human.

“This is mad,” the new man states.

“ _Louis._ ” Harry warns, finally releasing Zayn’s hand to put an arm around his blanketed shoulder and shuffle closer, the two of them fused together.

“You’re telling me this bloke wasn’t human?” Louis says, scoffing, “Really? Haz...” His face turns from disbelieving to pitying.

“Shut up.” Harry says fiercely, and Louis’ eyebrows shoot up his forehead. Gemma frowns from her place in the armchair. Zayn can’t stop looking at his own hands, at his bare feet. They’re bony. In fact, he’s lithe and short and Zayn thinks his hairy human legs are the most beautiful things he’s ever seen.

“Zayn,” Zayn lets his eyes slide from his humanity to the man beside him, letting Harry’s eyes dart between his own, “Zayn, tell them.”

Zayn brings up a hand and places it on Harry’s cheek. Harry smiles at him, but it’s wobbly – like it’s not real, somehow. Zayn’s throat feels tight.

“I was a mermaid,” Zayn says, turning to lock eyes with Louis. He stares at him unblinkingly, remembering the way Harry had spat out his name days ago. “I had a tail. I lived in the sea.”

He feels Harry’s lips against his palm, a soft pressure.

“Fuck,” Gemma mutters, and Zayn lets his hand slip from Harry’s cheek, turns to look at her. “Harry, how are we going to explain this?”

“I’m studying Law,” Harry says, and Zayn knows that would be helpful, probably, if he could think past the fact that he can _walk_ now. “I know some people.”

“What, people who can forge birth certificates?” Louis asks, and his tone is sharp. Zayn doesn’t like him, and not just because he made Harry sad.

“ _People._ ” Harry simply responds, and Zayn can feel him trembling a bit.

“I’m sorry,” Zayn apologises quietly, and Harry turns toward him, lifting a hand to brush Zayn’s hair from his face. Zayn feels unused to this new skin, and it’s making him quiet, a bit scared. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“How _did_ this happen?” Gemma asks, and she sits up straighter. “Because Harry was telling me you had a tail pretty confidently. He didn’t say anything about making it go away.”

“Gemma,” hisses Harry, and Zayn puts a hand on his knee – Zayn has knees, _too,_ now. That’s... _different_ – to stop him, to relax him. Harry deflates, and Zayn’s happy he can do that, at least.

“I don’t know,” Zayn explains, looking at her evenly. She shifts, a bit uncomfortable. “Liam said he didn’t know about anything like this happening. And he would, if there was anything to know.”

“Liam another mermaid?” Louis asks, and then pulls a face. “Christ, I can’t believe that’s a sentence that came outta my mouth.”

It takes them a while, but Zayn tries to explain, in fits and bursts, that he’s not sure if it’s permanent, and he doesn’t know why it happened, and that he was just trying to save Harry from drowning.

“Why were you out there?” Gemma asks sharply, and Harry cringes back against the sofa the tiniest bit, “That’s so dangerous.”

“No reason,” Harry says, and Zayn decides he’s not going to tell Gemma that Harry was calling for him. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“The others will be back soon,” Louis says suddenly, and he’s looking out the window with a frown, arms crossed over his chest, “We’ve got to think up something.”

“Maybe he’s a friend of yours that popped ‘round, Lou,” Gemma starts, eyes flitting about the room in thought, “No one would know he wasn’t. He can sleep in your room whilst we sort things out.”

“I don’t like you, though.” Zayn says, raising an eyebrow. Harry snorts, and Zayn cranes his neck to see him smother a smile into Zayn’s shoulder, rubbing his face against the blanket.

Louis has the grace not to say anything, but Zayn notices the way his lips twitch, like he would if Harry weren’t there.

Zayn borrows some of Louis’ clothes – soft, loose pants that Harry calls ‘joggers’, and a plain t-shirt. He’s introduced to four other people all with curious eyes, and he spends the afternoon trying out human food with varying results, ignoring Harry’s laugh when he makes a face at peanut butter, but secretly relishing in it. The six others are watching the television – something Zayn had only vaguely heard about but isn’t much interested in – when Harry suggests they go to bed.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Harry asks him in his bedroom, and Zayn tilts his head in askance. The bed is lumpy and though it’s comfortable Zayn feels strange letting his body impress upon something. He’s so used to floating. “I don’t know you but I _know_ you.”

Zayn turns to face Harry, the warmth of him like the best kind of summer day on the rock formation, Zayn’s face turned to the sun and his tail glinting colourfully.

A part of him mourns those days, and mourns the feeling of the water around him, the feeling of knowing it’s home. He mourns being able to stay under for hours without worrying about oxygen, and most of all he mourns what he _knows._ There’s a world ahead of him that he’s got no clue about, and it makes his legs itch.

“You know I make you smile,” Zayn tells him, and Harry smiles involuntarily in response, laughing quietly, “There’s nothing else.”

“There is,” Harry insists, and he brings a hand up to cradle Zayn’s cheek, his thumb rubbing under Zayn’s left eye. “There’s so much more. You’ll see.”

He pulls Zayn towards him, rests their foreheads together. Zayn sighs, soft and sated, and falls asleep.

 

***

 

**THREE MONTHS LATER**

 

“This is stupid,” Zayn spits, throwing the pen down, “I can speak perfectly. Why do I need to write?”

“It’s for school,” Harry insists, sighing, rubbing his forehead, “You know you need to go to school, Zayn.”

“I’ve already been to school.” Zayn says petulantly.

“Human school,” Harry clarifies, patient as ever, “Please.”

Zayn gets up and walks away, his legs unsteady. They get like that when he’s upset, which is fucking annoying – he used to be able to swim away, strong and powerful, when his sisters did something to frustrate him. Now he walks and nearly trips, and it’s fucking terrible.

And that’s his new favourite word – _fuck._

Harry finds him on the balcony of his own flat, the autumn leaves flying in the wind. Zayn breathes in deeply, eyes shut, and pretends he’s not there.

“Do you miss it?” Harry asks, and his tone is the opposite of what Zayn had expected it to be. He sounds sad, and Zayn had thought he’d just be angry.

“What?” Zayn asks, frowning, opening his eyes to look at Harry. He leans on the railing, staring down the street he lives in and not meeting Zayn’s eyes.

“Do you regret it, Zayn?” Harry asks, and in the pause after his question he turns his head and looks at him, face blank.

“No,” Zayn says, feeling his heart race, “Don’t be stupid. Be happy.”

“Is that it?” Harry asks, straightening, looking a little lost. He’s not smiling. “Just ‘be happy’?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Zayn stresses, putting his human hands on Harry’s human face and letting his heart flutter anew, letting his chest feel tight; not with worry but with promise, " _Harry._ ”

He pulls him in, and he lets their lips touch. Everything feels close and tingly and Zayn wishes he could make Harry know everything – how Zayn gave up everything for him by sheer power of will; how Zayn studies for him, works for him, talks to Harry’s friends for him; how Zayn wants to kiss Harry until he’s old and crusty like humans get; how Zayn loves Harry, and wishes he could pet his non-existent tail to let him know. It’s so much harder to say the words.

“This is more,” Zayn breathes when they part, faces still close. Harry is smiling, small and hopeful, “isn’t it?”

“This is the beginning,” Harry tells him, and he smiles so wide that Zayn can’t help but join him, “It’s the beginning of more.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? Comments? Queries? Enquire below.


End file.
